Flower Country
by amritacafe
Summary: Everyone assumes Hinata has confidence issues. Sakura knows better. Set during the timeskip.


Hinata tilted her face up toward the sky so that her skin would collect the raindrops.

"Let's try it again," she'd said.

"There's nothing gentle about the Gentle Fist," Brother Neji said from the back of her head. "It's a terribly cruel attack system. I believe that is your problem, Hinata. You are a gentle person, perhaps too gentle."

The rain was new and fell as hard as dropped coins. It stung Hinata's skin. She walked aimlessly, ignoring the usual post-practice pins and needles. Brother Neji was patient, but he did not mince words: his Gentle Fist was not gentle. If Hinata wanted to grow as a _kunoichi_ , he seemed to think that hers would need to become the same. It was a shame his eyes were so clouded. The rain threw a mixture of fog and dust up from the earth.

"Where do you want to be?" asked Brother Neji, sipping his green tea. "As a person, as a ninja?" Hinata looked up into the sky and saw a ceiling, clean and swept, covered in blossoms of every shape and color. She could almost remember the shapes of them if she tried. In her childhood lessons, she had been knocked on her back over and over to gaze at those flowers. She had seen the ceiling enough times that she thought of staring up at those blossoms as "going to Flower Country."

The haze of fog dissipated in front of her, and she saw a girl in full bloom.

Sakura's fist made the air shake but Hinata was gone, sunk down into her stance and pressing a palm strike into Sakura's trunk. Only the toughness of Sakura's core and her quick release of chakra spared her the full brunt of Hinata's strike. Sakura brought her knee up and Hinata fell back naturally, like floating feather evading a questing hand. Hinata back rolled and came up facing forward, hands up, grinning.

"Are you sure Lady Tsunade's been teaching you taijutsu?" she asked. "I've seen Konohamaru execute better counterstrikes." Sakura blinked. She had an informal running list of things she had learned about Hinata since Naruto had left the village, and the one she forgot the most was that Hinata was only shy when she was intimidated—and if she was winning, she talked a whole lot of shit. The habit probably came from Kiba, but it still irritated Sakura how worked up a smirk and a snide comment could get her.

"Shut up!" said Sakura. "Just shut up!" She lunged forward and threw a punch, but Hinata turned aside her fist and kicked her high in the chest before backing away again, this time tapping her cheek as if to say "come and get it". Sakura came and got it.

She punched the ground and it spat the force of her blow back up, upsetting Hinata's footing. While Hinata was off balance Sakura charged, chaining blows together one at a time. Most missed, but a significant number made contact, including an especially solid cross right into Hinata's smug face. Sakura felt pretty good about herself until Hinata ducked beneath one of her punches and swept her legs out from under her. When Sakura went to get up, Hinata put a foot on her stomach.

"You really hit me hard," Hinata said, wiping at a smear of blood coming out of her nose.

"I can fix that," Sakura said, "sorry, I just got carried—"

"I wasn't complaining," Hinata said, which was the precise moment when Sakura realized that a very attractive, somewhat bitchy girl with the kind of triceps Naruto had spent his entire prepuberty trying to attain was stepping on her. Every drop of blood in her body went right to her face and chest. "And from the way you're losing control of your chakra, I'm guessing you aren't either." Hinata took her foot off of Sakura's gut and extended a hand to help her up, but with the momentum of lifting her she pulled Sakura in close to her, placing a hand on her hip.

"How did you know I was into stuff like this?" Sakura said. Hinata had to laugh.

"Sakura, you can't be friends with Ino and not be into stuff like this." Sakura wasn't sure what Hinata meant by "this"—girl stuff or fighting. But she didn't know which one she'd meant either, and when Hinata kissed her, she found that she didn't have to care. Hinata was so...short? And warm. And grabby, but hell, so was Ino and she'd never complained before.

Hinata pulled away suddenly, and for a split second Sakura was mortified to find herself trying to follow her, but in the end she settled back onto the ground firmly. She could picture what she looked like: eyes wide, mouth slightly agape, flushed and breathing hard. Hinata grinned at her, and then punched Sakura out.

"It'd be a shame to just do that all night," Hinata said, while Sakura was getting off the ground. "Why don't we go see if we can have a good time?"

* * *

"Let's see," said Tsunade, shuffling through a stack of papers in front of her. "Destruction of village property. Public lewdness. Misuse of training equipment. Vandalism." She squinted at one of the forms. "Casting genjutsu on civilians from Teuchi, which means you probably just flirted with his daughter, I'll throw that one out. Where was I? Public drunkenness. And lastly..." She dropped about twenty papers on her desk with a thud. "More noise complaints than I've gotten in the last month. Sakura, I know you can be a little reckless, but I didn't expect this from the house of Hyuga. What do you have to say for yourselves?"

"Well, you know, girls will be girls," said Sakura weakly. Hinata just hung her head, unable to speak. There had been pictures taken. Brother Neji had seen one of them, and said "Well, I suppose you have indeed become stronger" before locking himself in his room. Her father had been meditating since he saw the pictures. Hanabi had quietly given her a fist bump.

"Honestly, I should turn you over to your parents. But...I don't care. I have bigger problems than two girls who just want to have fun. Get out of my office." Tsunade dropped all the complaints in the garbage.

"Huh?" Both girls looked up at once, shocked.

"Konohamaru keeps sneaking into the women's baths. Give him a good punch for me and we'll call it even. Oh, and ladies—next time you have a girls' night, do invite Ino. She filed five complaints on the subject. Dismissed."

And in the house of Hyuga, Hiashi clutched a picture of his eldest daughter dancing inappropriately on the rooftop of Ichiraku Ramen. Opening his eyes and turning his gaze to heaven, he looked to the ceiling and went to Flower Country.


End file.
